Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to companies integrating social and environmental concerns into their business operations and interactions with stakeholders. The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for a company's actions and encourage a positive impact on communities, consumers and the environment. CSR businesses proactively promote the public interest through practices like supporting community growth, regardless of legal obligations. CSR involves considering public interests in decision-making and balancing financial, social and environmental impacts.

1. Corporate Social ResponsibilityPresented by,Larissa Long

2. DefinitionCorporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: people, planet, profit.

3. Puget Sound Corporate Social Responsibility Programshttp://www.philanthropynw.org/s_pnw/index.asp

4. PeopleEducation – Education programs in colleges, universities and high schools offer not only insight into the company but interaction and giving as well.

5. Investors –There are many socially responsible investors looking to invest in something they believe in financially and ethically.

6. Communities – Walmart is a great example of how corporate giving and CSR has helped to boost its image. Its reputation for poor employee treatment and poor product quality is easily forgiven by the amount donated to schools and communities each year (#10 in the country). 81% of high net worth donors cite “giving back to the community” as a chief motivation for giving.

7. Incentives– Offering employees charity match is a great way to entice employees all while giving back to the community in a tax-deductible way. Many companies also offer scholarships as an incentive to look into their company as students go through college. PlanetBeing green is something we hear a lot about in Seattle. It isn’t just recycling your soda cans. It’s also recycling equipment, installing electric car plug stations (already in progress) and offering customers green alternatives. It’s saving money…Which company saved $1 million annually by simply reducing font size?

8. ProfitNo corporation should create a CSR program in hopes of making a profit. However, by focusing CSR efforts around your product, as General Electric has done, can create profit naturally. Many companies get local and sometimes national press for small community efforts.

9. Marketing BenefitsWhen you do something big you get return Look what happened when Mark Zuckerberg joined the “Giving Pledge” campaign, promising, publically, to donate half of his net worth to charity. This was done in response to the negative publicity he was receiving from the Social Network film being released and Facebook privacy issues.

10. Testimonial“After volunteering with F5 Networks at the Swedish Holidays at the Hospital event, I was approached by a customer who noticed me wearing the F5 scarf. He asked me a few questions about F5 and the scarf and I informed him I received the scarf as a volunteer. He immediately told me that he was proud to be a part of an organization that was so involved with the community and helping others.” – Mathew Hartshorn (Rudolph), Swedish event volunteer

11. Key Performance IndicatorsThe benefits of CSR are not intangible. See a sample of Cisco’s 2010 KPI :* These numbers have been rounded to the nearest 25,000.